Hazel+Wilcox

On March 16, 1915, 19-year-old saleslady Hazel Wilcox, who also worked as a cabaret singer, died at a Chicago home from sepsis caused by an abortion believed to have been perpetrated that day by midwife Julia Patera.

Patera was held by the coroner on March 20 but the case never went to trial, despite the fact that Elinora Cassidy had died only the previous day after identifying Patera as her abortionist.

Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

In fact, due to improvements in addressing these problems, maternal mortality in general (and abortion mortality with it) fell dramatically in the 20th Century, decades before Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion across America.

For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see [|Abortion Deaths 1910-1919].



 For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Sources:
 * Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database
 * Death certificate
 * Chicago Day Book snippets of Mar. 16 and Mar. 17, 1915



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